Firearms; Vital Tools For Self Defense Or Deadly Killers?

Firearms;  Vital Tools for Self Defense or Deadly Killers?


Introduction


     There are presently in excess of 200 million guns in the United States,

according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms  Each year this number

grows by 4 to 5 million. There are 60 to 65 million legal owners of one or more

guns.1  There is a firearm on the premises of more than half the households in

America.  Most of them keep guns for protection.  The others keep them for

hunting, target shooting, collecting, and similar pursuits.

     In recent years nearly 35,000 people have been killed annually by guns

in the United States.  These deaths include 15,000 murders, 18,000 suicides, and

1,500 accidents.2  It is because of these statistics that many would like to ban

guns altogether. But is that really in your best interest?  Would it really

benefit this country, or reduce the number of murders in this country?

Consider the evidence  in this article and you will see that guns should not be

outlawed and that less gun control in necessary to preserve what the founders of

this country believed in.


Guns are Beneficial


     Guns can help prevent crime.  This is a view held by many opponents to

gun control.  The criminals themselves agree. As part of  a three - year study

by the U. S. Department of Justice, criminals in prisons across the nation were

interviewed.  Sixty percent feared being shot by an armed citizen more than

being shot by the police.  fifty - three percent did not commit  a specific

crime because they were afraid the victim was armed.   Fifty - seven percent of

them were scared off by an armed victim who either brandished a gun or actually

fired it.3  This alone shows that crime would drop if more citizens owned,

carried and knew how to use guns.

     One  such case involved eleven - year old Jason Green of Houston, Texas.

Home alone one night, he heard noises in the house.  Arming himself with his

father's shotgun he investigated and caught a burglar in the act.  Just then his

mother pulled up outside in the family car.  Fearing the burglar might harm his

mother Jason fired.  His mother reacted by bursting into the house and firing

her revolver.  Hit by bullets from both guns the burglar died.

     Jason's mother, like Jason, was defending her house against an intruder.

There are about 645,000 defensive uses of handguns each year, according to Gary

Kleck, a professor at Florida State University.  He bases his figure on several

surveys on handgun use, including one done for an organization that favors

banning all guns.  Kleck also concluded that hand guns used in self - defense,

or some other legally justified cause kill 1,500 to 2,800 criminals every year.

If other types of firearms besides handguns are included, then over 1,000,000

law - abiding citizens use guns for self - defense annually.

     Guns also provide vulnerable women with some form of protection against

rape and other violent crime.  Recently, Orlando, Florida saw an increase in the

number of rapes over a twelve - month period from 12.8 per 100,000 to 35.9

per100,000.  Women in Orlando were afraid to  go out alone, even in the daytime.

Citizens of Orlando demanded that something be done.

     Something was done.  the Orlando Police Department set up a program to

train women to use handguns.  Over three thousand women armed themselves and

took training courses.  As a result, Orlando's rape figure dropped to 4.1 per

100,000 - a 90 percent  drop from the previous high.  Similar programs in

Detroit and Highland Park, Michigan, and Montgomery, Alabama saw impressive

reductions in crimes against women, including both rape and robbery.

     One woman victim decided on her own that she had enough.  A fifty - one

year old woman of Los Angeles, California, twice raped by the same man,

purchased a handgun and took lesions to learn how to use it.  When the man

return a third time she shot and killed him.

     These are just a handful of examples of why handguns help prevent crime.

There are literally thousands of the
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